Shocking developments at @Dartington. In spirit of not letting people bury bad news during this pandemic it is important we shine a light on things that need to be seen and thoroughly questioned.

Dartington has sold two fields for housing. Fields which they had openly committed

not to sell until at least 2028 and not without first consulting the local community.

Fields which have been sold without being put on the open market (against Charity Commission guidance) for an undisclosed price. The community was given no option to purchase them.

In complete contradiction to a letter delivered to all residents in the neighbourhood in 2015:

“We agree to a process of good communication, openness and transparency in all our dealings with land disposals and sales.”

None of this happened in the sale to @BakerEstates

It is complete fallacy to suggest this sale will solve Dartington’s financial problems.

The estate needs wholesale reform and new governance to find a long-term, sustainable solution and selling off its land bit by bit is not the answer.
But the board seem resolute in ignoring

every option that it has been presented with for years.
It won’t reply to letters, it ignores environmental evidence about the damage this construction will wreak, it refuses to meet or engage with the local community.

Dartington is a special place. The NHS was conceived there,

The arts, ideas and radical thinking have flourished behind its walls and in its grounds.

It is hugely valued and enormously symbolic for the local community, none of whom want to see it collapse.

In this day and age I simply cannot see why the Board of Trustees cannot sit

down with the intelligent, creative and well-meaning people in the local community to try and find some answers that are fit for the 21st century. Instead of this Victorian ‘us and them’ attitude that feels feudal, combative, arrogant and destructive.

Our country, our world, is

being radically reshaped in front of our eyes by the Coronavirus epidemic. Normal rules do not apply. Society is being tested.

So let’s redraw the rules. Let’s sit down together and start from the beginning. Let’s look at what works and what doesn’t. Let’s open the books.

Let’s brainstorm the ideas that have been rejected and those that have never even been considered. Let’s breathe life into the shops again, let’s make magic for children, let’s engage with the world’s brightest thinkers, leaders and artists, explore the endless possibilities

in the gardens, woods and fields. Let’s bring people together to learn and laugh and eat and drink and celebrate... and let’s breathe life into some of those amazing buildings that have been left empty to rot.

It’s all possible with the right will and the right people, open to

ideas and willing to explore all possibilities.

What a shame we’ll have to see scores more houses built in the community because the people running the Trust didn’t have the courage to do this.

@robintransition @garthur1 @SavingHall @dartingtonhall @BBCSpotlight

@thesundaytimes @JohnSimpsonNews @davemorrissey64 @itvwestcountry @bbcmartynoates